1. Field of the Invention
This invention relates to a blinking illuminated product box, and more particularly to a gift packaging which uses external light-emitting diodes which blink in a pattern of light on a box.
2. Description Of The Related Art
In the past, gift packaging has been accomplished in a variety of ways. If an individual wanted to wrap a box, he or she would usually select a decorative paper which wrapped around the box and had to be secured in place by tape, glue or other adhesive. A bow or ribbon could be attached to the decorative paper. More recently, boxes which include pre-printed designs have been used in order to avoid the requirement of using decorative paper. What is needed, however, is a packaging which includes a series of light emitting diodes which will allow even less time go and energy to be spent by a consumer in wrapping a gift.
Others have used a variety of means for lighting portions of articles. A variety of patents to Franc, U.S. Pat. Nos. 3,666,937; 3,700,879; 3,720,825; 3,732,414; 3,737,648; and 3,740,543 disclose a variety of ways of lighting paper products. However, none shows the configuration disclosed in the present invention.
Other ways of lighting cards and other paper materials are shown in the patents to Schmidt et al., U.S. Pat. No. 4,055,014; Wilbur, U.S. Pat. No. 4,363,081; Dejean, U.S. Pat. No. 4,497,126; Steiner, U.S. Pat. No. 4,607,747; Feng, U.S. Pat. No. 5,052,263; and Ming-Ho, U.S. Pat. Nos. 5,147,129 and 5,217,286. None of these patents discloses a gift packaging with a light-emitting diode configuration as disclosed in the present application. While some of the products disclosed in these patents may be attached to other types of gift packaging, they are not in themselves gift packaging. Other configurations, used with clothing and jewelry and dissimilar to the present invention, are disclosed in the patents to Fenton, U.S. Pat. No. 4,076,976 and Eisenbraun, U.S. Pat. No. 5,113,325.
Other technologies have been used when lighting a box. Most other patents dealing with lighting a box usually relate to the lighting of the interior of the box or attaching a light to the exterior of the box. These include the patents to Thompson, U.S. Design Pat. No. D278,420; Baker, U.S. Design Pat. No. 325,672; Dickson, U.S. Pat. No. 3,883,730; Chao et al., U.S. Pat. No. 3,937,320; Cunningham, U.S. Pat. No. 3,938,132; Chabria, U.S. Pat. No. 5,289,917; Geeting et al., U.S. Pat. No. 5,329,433; and Manrubia, U.S. Pat. No. 5,408,771. These patents all deal with providing sufficient light to enable a user to see the interior of the box or to see other articles with flashlight-type attachments. These configurations are not useful in the present invention, where the light emitting diodes do not generate a light for illuminating something that cannot be viewed due to insufficient light.